Laptop vs Clipboard

Things that could destroy my:

Laptop	Both	Clipboard
Coffee Falling Power surges Worms and viruses Rain Babies EMPs Losing the power cable Tripping on the power cable Planned obsolescence Stomping Yogurt Crumbs The AllSpark Big magnets	Fire Karate experts Garbage compactors Lightsabers	Termites Beavers Very strong wind

PS: This list was created as my flight into Detroit was descending, and "all personal electronic items" had to be switched off.

Scalable education

I got a lot of great responses on my previous post about scalable education, and wanted to share them back out here. I also got a lot of questions on what I meant by "scalable" education. Let me speak to that first.

Thesis: the number of students getting a good education today is about 20 times the number of good teachers. Under our current classroom model, "number of high-quality teachers" is the limiting variable. By scalable education, I mean models of teaching that could feasibly grow to orders of magnitude greater than 20 -- systems that would allow one good teacher (plus the right support system) to teach 2,000 or 2,000,000 kids.


Here's a loosely annotated list of links to proposed models of "scalable education," sorted from least to most:

Jump - New curriculum deployment. Not bad, but not revolutionary.

PBS documentary on "digital learning" - This is a mixed bag. Some models (e.g. the Smithsonian scavenger hunt) are neat, engaging students in new ways. I was less impressed with several segments that are just trading classrooms for classrooms plus computers.

Teach for America - TFA's teachers do a lot of good, but they also tend move on quickly. (This may be changing.) On the other hand, TFA is very proactive about maintaining their alumni network. If this is going the be revolutionary, it will be as a policymaking network, more than a teaching force.

itunes-U - Possibly revolutionary. But content delivery < education.

TED - "The first major educational brand to emerge in a century." Very cool topics, but see previous.

Harvard's Distance Education - Lectures are free; course credit with the Harvard brand cost $. Many universities are doing this; Harvard is probably the best known. This is changing things, but I'm not sure how competition is going to play out in this space.

The Khan Academy - My number one vote for a potentially disruptive model of education.

"Information is good"

Picking up a thread from the monkey cage (great blog--worth a look), Slate has an article by Washington Post reporter Anne Applebaum arguing that "WikiLeaks' data-dump reporting simply makes a case for the existence of the mainstream media."

The article is a quick read. I want to pick it apart, and see where it takes us.

Things Applebaum gets:

• Facts need interpretation to be useful.
• In this instance WikiLeaks provided lots of facts and very little interpretation.

Things Applebaum misses:

• "Mainstream media" is not the only institution that can provide useful interpretation, context, expertise, etc.
• Transparency (making data public) breaks up mainstream media's monopoly on interpretation by allowing others (e.g. bloggers) to tell different stories.
  
• Transparency allows savvy readers to come to their own conclusions, instead of relying on reporters to decide which facts are important. Most people won't bother to do this. But it's useful to have multiple perspectives.
  

My takeaways:

• Data dumps don't replace mainstream media -- but they do threaten its monopoly on interpretation. The slightly defensive tone of the article suggests that Applebaum agrees, whether or not she wants to admit it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a Big Media hater, but I am a big fan of transparent reporting.
• On a more philosophical level, the difference between raw data and interpretation leads to some interesting ideas about "information." Raw data is not actionable. Is it still information? For most people, the dense, jargon-laden text of military reports don't mean anything. Reading them doesn't give you any traction to change your opinion or do anything differently -- they are "uninformative." A few experts (e.g. troops in Afghanistan, military experts) know how to unpack and sift through these reports. Apparently, what constitutes "information" is in the eye of the beholder.
  

Mutiny, information technology, and technocracy

Responding to David Brooks, on the recent upsurge in technocracy and its risks. (This post was originally part of a discussion thread with friends, but I got into it enough to decide to put it up here.)


I'm convinced technology is increasing the marginal truthfulness of many progressive claims. I don't believe it fundamentally changes the relationship among individuals, economies, government, and other social institutions.

The example that comes to mind is mutiny. Mutiny was a huge worry for captains and navies for hundreds of years, right up until the invention of the radio. See mutiny for interesting reading, and watch Mutiny on the Bounty and The Caine Mutiny (starring Humprey Bogart!) for good fictional accounts of the psychology and institutions that shape mutiny.

Radio was a game changer. Since the invention and adoption of radio, mutiny has been almost unheard of, especially among large naval powers. (The Vietnam-era SS_Columbia_Eagle_incident is the exception that proves the rule.) Shipboard radios tighten the link between the captain's authority and the worldwide chain of command. It makes escape extremely unlikely for mutineers. However, desertion, disobedience, cowardice, incompetence, corruption, theft, etc. are still problems for ships and navies.

As I see it, mutiny was already a marginal activity -- very risky for the mutineers, with a low probability of success -- and radio pushed the marginal success rate much lower. But mutiny is just one act. From the perspective of naval efficiency, radio changed the balance of power, but didn't fix the underlying social problems of enforcing discipline and coordinating action. Radio caused changes in the social structure of ships, but they didn't fundamentally alter the problems that navies face.

Information technology is doing a similar thing today. It lowers the cost of storing, transmitting, aggregating, and manipulating data. Where lower transaction costs can solve social problems, the progressives (and I'm one of them, cautiously) are right to be optimistic.

But many kinds of information have been cheap for a long time. Socially, we haven't solved the problems of greed, lying, bureaucratic turf wars, bullying, corruption, graft, incompetence... When *those* are the real causes, changes in information technology can't be expected to help nearly as much. We need to invent better institutions first.The example that comes to mind is mutiny. Mutiny was a huge worry for captains and navies for hundreds of years, right up until the invention of the radio. See mutiny for interesting reading, and watch Mutiny on the Bounty and The Caine Mutiny (starring Humprey Bogart!) for good fictional accounts of the psychology and institutions that shape mutiny.Radio was a game changer. Since the invention and adoption of radio, mutiny has been almost unheard of, especially among large naval powers. (The Vietnam-era SS_Columbia_Eagle_incident is the exception that proves the rule.) Shipboard radios tighten the link between the captain's authority and the worldwide chain of command. It makes escape extremely unlikely for mutineers. However, desertion, disobedience, cowardice, incompetence, corruption, theft, etc. are still problems for ships and navies.As I see it, mutiny was already a marginal activity -- very risky for the mutineers, with a low probability of success -- and radio pushed the marginal success rate much lower. But mutiny is just one act. From the perspective of naval efficiency, radio changed the balance of power, but didn't fix the underlying social problems of enforcing discipline and coordinating action. Radio caused changes in the social structure of ships, but they didn't fundamentally alter the problems that navies face.Information technology is doing a similar thing today. It lowers the cost of storing, transmitting, aggregating, and manipulating data. Where lower transaction costs can solve social problems, the progressives (and I'm one of them, cautiously) are right to be optimistic.But many kinds of information have been cheap for a long time. Socially, we haven't solved the problems of greed, lying, bureaucratic turf wars, bullying, corruption, graft, incompetence... When *those* are the real causes, changes in information technology can't be expected to help nearly as much. We need to invent better institutions first.">